Local company provides bang for Southaven's annual July 4th celebration

Photos by Stan Carroll/The Commercial Appeal
July 3, 2014 - Justice Mallet, with PyroFire Displays Inc., loads a truck with racks of mortar tubes for a fireworks show in Greenville and Cleveland, Mississippi. The Olive Branch company is producing this year’s display at Snowden Grove Park for the city of Southaven. Timing is everything during a pyrotechnic display “Never have a dead sky; always have something going on,” says Mallett.

July 3, 2014 - A rack of five-inch mortar tubes sits ready for Friday night’s fireworks display at Snowden Grove Park. Jeremy Carlson (left), Chris Jeter and William Lake, with PyroFire Displays Inc., began set-up on Thursday afternoon. The Olive Branch company is producing this year’s show for the city of Southaven. (Stan Carroll/The Commercial Appeal)

July 3, 2014 - For larger shows, PyroFire Displays Inc. uses a computer drawing for location set-up of the racks of spun-fiberglass mortar tubes. The Olive Branch company is producing this year’s firework display for the city of Southaven at Snowden Grove Park. (Stan Carroll/The Commercial Appeal)

While the show was good, McKnatt knew his company could give the city more bang for its buck.

PyroFire Displays will get its shot Friday as the DeSoto County company puts on Southaven's annual Independence Day celebration.

"This is going to be one of the largest shows in this area, if not the largest in this area," said McKnatt, founder and CEO of Pyrofire Displays. "I watched the show last year to do our homework and research because our No. 1 priority was to win the city of Southaven's business. "

The company, with an office in Olive Branch, outbid two other companies earlier this year to win the job.

"In previous years, the city of Southaven had been spending $40,000 on a show and they were putting out less than what we are putting on this year," McKnatt said. "This year, the city is going to save $12,000 and still get a bigger show. A lot of that has to do with us being local. We don't have the travel expenses and can give the city a premium show. "

Mayor Darren Musselwhite said he was happy to learn that a local company was getting the city's business.

"In this particular situation, a local company was the lowest and best bid," Musselwhite said. "They followed the bidding process and won the right to put on the fireworks show this year."

PyroFire Displays was started in 2001 by McKnatt after he worked for nearly a decade for a roadside fireworks company.

"They did only consumer sales," McKnatt said. "So I spun out on my own and started my fireworks display company."

His father, Corey McKnatt, has since joined the company and merged his sound production business with the fireworks events.

"It was the perfect marriage," said Corey McKnatt, who serves as president/designer of PyroFire. He will choreograph the music for Southaven's show, which will have 20,000 fireworks effects and be 20 minutes long.

He added that while PyroFire has done shows on a local level including Ole Miss football games, it has also done events internationally. For four years, the company provided the fireworks during Chinese New Year at Victoria Harbor, Hong Kong. They also represented America at the International Fireworks Competition in the Philippines.

Independence Day is one of the fireworks industry's busiest season. During the July Fourth holiday, PyroFire is putting on 20 shows in three days.

Friday, in addition to the Southaven show, the company is sending its pyrotechnicians to a total of 10 July Fourth events from Mississippi to Florida.

But Donald McKnatt said even though things are popping for his company during the Fourth holiday, Christmas and New Year's Eve — along with corporate and private events ranging from weddings to birthdays — keep them busy year-round.

PyroFire has a full-time staff of 8 to 10 and ramps up to more than 50 employees during the summer busy season.

"We've done shows that range from $1,500 to $500,000," Donald McKnatt said. "With the Southaven show, it will be like a homecoming for me."

He explained that when he worked for another fireworks company some 15 years ago, that company was hired to do Southaven's first July Fourth celebration.

"Now after all this time, I'm back but I'm doing the show with my own company," Donald McKnatt said. "We have come full circle."